


Discomfited

by apostrophee



Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: M/M, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 03:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18357245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apostrophee/pseuds/apostrophee
Summary: Oscar is as beautiful as he is terrifying and oh no Ruby thinks as he turns to walk in a different direction.  Oh no, this feeling like his bones are slipping out of his skin, this sudden need to escape, is terrifying.





	Discomfited

  
  
The sun is infinite. The heat feels like a blaze against his skin, burrowing down until his flesh reddens like an overly ripe tomato. Something feels off, doesn’t quite feel right, not today. Everything is out of sorts, misplaced. A little crooked and altogether not straight. It’s hot outside, unbearably so. However, this is California and it’s always warm, but today, today it’s as hot as fire. The heat burns. There are flames licking unto his belly. This roaring intensity that rolls and curls throughout his gut is unsettling. He feels tight.  
  
Ruby’s always felt a little strange in his skin, like there are some parts of his body that don’t fit together as smoothly as they should. He’s spent his whole life learning how to live with it; all these mismatched pieces, lining up the joints into beginnings and ends. Navigating through tangled spaces. He’s skilled at tethering them, threading his veins to skin and bone to matter.  
  
He’s always been authentic, especially to himself. To thine own self be true. His Abuelita says that he’s a little too honest, that his words can cut because his tongue is as sharp as his stature is neat and small. He feels like a giant though, like the world around him is so tiny. Like he wants to see everything, do so much, taste the delights of life, but he’s trapped. He can’t move.  
  
Ruby loves women. He enjoys watching them, the way they move with little effort. The long flow of their hair, the sweet smell of soap and shampoo that’s altogether feminine and wild. He loves their soft skin, the curvature of legs and spines, breasts round and plump. And women smell so good too. Nothing at all like flowers. They smell like fresh rain, all clean and sweet. He would love to have a girlfriend; someone he can kiss anytime, someone to inhale.  
  
He has been kissed before. He likes kissing girls slow and sweet, a suckle of tongues and licks into mouths as heartbeats thunder into a rage. It’s a sweet death, to get lost in the beauty of a woman’s softness. It’s just sometimes, sometimes when it’s dark and all he has is the quiet of his thoughts that he thinks about what it would be like to kiss into a mouth that’s not as delicate. To feel strong hands pull him close. Wide fingers to grasp and take.  
  
And these, these thoughts mess with his head. That is not the kind of person he wants to be. He doesn’t want to be that person who wants everything. He’s different enough. He’s not tough. He’s the furthest thing from machismo but he is made up of layers that are strong, but his thoughts untie more spaces in his body, widening the chasm. He doesn’t want to fall in and get lost.  
  
Does anyone else have this confusion? Does anyone else’s skin sometimes feel so tight one day that it’s like they can’t breathe and then the next so loose it’s like they’re drowning in their own body?  
  
He tried to talk to Cesar about it when they were younger, asked him if he ever wanted to kiss a boy. Cesar didn’t quite understand, said he gives his big brother kisses all of the time and maybe then, maybe it was that particular day that Ruby began to notice Oscar.  
  
He’s always been a mystery, Cesar’s big brother, Spooky, taller than some and too quiet. Oscar and Mario were friends for a while. He and Cesar used to come over for dinner a lot, Ruby’s mother always looking at the brothers with concern, always giving them seconds and thirds. Ruby used to think it was strange how Cesar’s mother would disappear for weeks. He didn’t understand much when he was eight, but he knew that big kids weren’t supposed to be taking care of little kids.  
  
Oscar never really paid him any mind, but Ruby watched, watched as Oscar would eat his food, how he always looked down shyly when the attention was placed on him. He was really smart too, that’s what Mario used to say, bragging about his friend. He’d say it all the time, how Oscar knew so many big words.

Cesar idolized his big brother too, worshiped him, tried to dress like Spooky, comb his hair straight back, jet black and slicked with pomade. Baggy white t-shirts tucked into dockers, old school Nike sneakers and socks pulled high. And all the while Ruby would silently watch this mystery boy who rarely spoke with his mouth, choosing to let his facial expressions communicate for him.  
  
It was an odd fascination that Ruby had with Oscar, wanting to be around him but not knowing what to say. So, he said nothing, not really. Whenever he was lucky enough for Mario not to make him leave, he would sit there, as still as a statue just watching, wanting to orbit this galaxy of a person.  
  
And then one day Oscar stopped coming over when Cesar did. Mario seemed to be indifferent about it, didn’t really care, preoccupied with middle school affairs. And a pretty girl who would ring their bell, shyly asking him outside to hang. But to Ruby, the ache of loss was small, but still very much there.  
  
In and out Oscar would float into Ruby’s space as time began to shift. Disappearing only to reappear, each time less and less of who he was before; a little harder, a little angrier, quieter. A puzzle. Ruby’s curiosity began to turn into something else, something like apprehension as ink began to scratch across Oscar’s arms, his eyes darker, meaner as his body grew longer, arms strong. He walked like he was mad at the world, like he could kill without giving it a second thought, his nickname personified. Spooky.  
  
But now, more recently, something is different with Oscar. There’s been a shift in how he moves. No longer as restless as he used to seem. Like he’s looser now, but still guarded, a tightness of his shoulders but an ease with his walk.

When Ruby sees him for the first time in almost four years, he doesn’t expect to feel that ache in his gut. That rush of wind that gets caught in his lungs as he inhales, the stench of the city raw but familiar. Oscar is as beautiful as he is terrifying and _oh no_ Ruby thinks as he turns to walk in a different direction. _Oh no_ , this feeling like his bones are slipping out of his skin, this sudden need to escape, is terrifying.  
  
And sometimes, now, it’s like Oscar knows that something is wrong with Ruby: the way he catches his eye and holds it, like he’s studying him, cataloguing his features, seemingly slowing down his car as Ruby walks by, nodding a hello before looking forward on the road, not waiting to be acknowledged. An exchange of sup in the bodega, a nod of indifference when Ruby comes over looking for Cesar, Oscar’s eyes always seeming to follow. To catch. To hold.  
  
Ruby feels like he’s losing his mind because there’s no way Oscar is watching him, no way he’s smiling at something he’s overheard he and Cesar talking about, but that laugh, that deep chuckle is wholly terrifying as it is baffling.  
  
Today though, today is very strange. Ruby’s not quite sure how he’s found himself alone with Oscar, sitting on this dirty, old yellow backyard loveseat. The silence is uncomfortable, but he knows it’s one sided because Oscar has his eyes closed as his head is leaning back, inhaling from his blunt. His legs are spread wide, his right knee touching Ruby’s left and it’s like it’s burning where their skin meets.  
  
Inside, inside Ruby is dying and he can’t explain it, so he gulps down the Corona a little too fast and chokes. Oscar laughs, says take it easy and offers him to take a hit of the weed.  
  
Ruby’s been high before, but he’s never actually smoked a blunt without Abuelita coaching him. When he admits as much, Oscar smiles. It’s slow and dangerous, but genuine as he sits up, sleepy hazel eyes looking Ruby over. It feels like all of Ruby’s insides are twisting tighter and tighter. He licks his lips and for a moment, a piece of time so fleeting it’s like it almost didn’t happen, Oscar’s eyes flick down to Ruby’s mouth. He stares, just a moment and when he blinks his eyes lock with Ruby’s. It’s devastation.  
  
Oscar inhales, holds the smoke in his mouth and motions for Ruby to come closer, but Ruby is frozen, Oscar’s stare locking him into place. He feels Oscar’s strong hand press against the back of his head, fingers wide and thick as they grip, fingernails scratching Ruby’s scalp as he gathers a fistful of hair.

He moves closer, bringing his mouth to Ruby’s, lips so close, almost touching, the hair from his mustache tickles. Instinctively, Ruby parts his lips and Oscar blows the chronic smoke into Ruby’s mouth. He tells Ruby to inhale it, to _swallow_ the smoke and it sounds so filthy that Ruby can feel a familiar heat begin to pool in his gut, a stirring in his pants.  
  
His world is ending, but his head is feeling light from the Corona. He’s not brave, not in this moment.  
  
Oscar stares, those hazel eyes are like a cannon being fired. He’s waiting for Ruby to say something. His fingers still pressing against Ruby’s neck, those wide fingers pressing down, rubbing, sliding down to his neck, squeezing his uninjured shoulder. It’s too intense. His face still close, so very close to Ruby’s, smiling, something rebellious in his eyes. He’s waiting for something, something Ruby is certain that he’s uncertain about. After a moment of silence, he’s pulling back, pulling away.  
  
Ruby feels shattered. All he can do is blink, watching as Oscar gets comfortable again, spreading his legs, laying his head back against the couch.  
  
Inhaling.  
  
Exhaling.

He looks over to Ruby and doesn’t speak, just stares under the sweep of his dark eyelashes. Studying. Watching.  
  
Inhale.  
  
Exhale.  
  
Ruby can’t breathe. He also can’t look away. He’s waiting for something, but he’s unsure of what. Maybe it’s for the world to end. Maybe it’s already have.  


**Author's Note:**

> Nothing explicit, this story is more crush/ hero worship as there is a vast age difference, but these are characters, ain’t nobody out here shipping real life children with actual adults, sis/bro/they/them.


End file.
